Such a Disappointment
by Bushyeyebrows99
Summary: In his last moments, Logan thinks of the implications behind Charles' death.


_It wasn't me._

_It wasn't me._

Logan has always known that he would die bleeding out with his heart in his hand, he just never expected that he would feel as intact as he did right now. He's always lived his life recklessly and generally unhealthy for the average human, and probably gone many times missing a limb and parts of himself that left him feeling entirely too hollow. But when you're a mutant who has survived years of torture, bigotry and fucking bullshit all your lie, it comes to reason that you never take any day for granted. In his case, that meant always moving past the pain and emptiness, dreading breathing but living ever day like it was his last.

However, in another sense, Logan never expected that he would die, and has probably even taken that fact for granted. But how could he not? When the only good thing about him was his six stupid fucking retractable claws and a regenerative ability that was more of a pain in the ass than anything, because it meant that people saw him as a monster, a wild animal with no means of taming. Ones that had to be put down. Always the same, always leaving destruction and the death of all his loved ones in his wake, these lingering feelings never lamented on because lamenting meant grieving and grieving was more fucking painful than all the adamantium poisoning in the world.

One damaged breath in.

The most recent case still burned in the depths of his mind. Simmering and sticking to his thoughts like the dark splotches of blood currently stuck against his bone-white wife-beater, still warm from all the open wounds left from his very last fight. The deaths of everyone he has ever known and cared for is choosing now to haunt him, has been haunting him ever since he and Laura made it out of the Munson's farm through the skin of their teeth and too much blood to bear. Laura and her group had left mere minutes before, and his final wish can only be that they made it past the border. Anything else was unthinkable and anything more was thinkable and anything more was unrealistic.

One rattled breath out.

From now on, those kids will only have each other. The last mutants still alive.

He heaves and coughs out a fresh wave of burgundy that stains the front of his already too-stained singlet, feeling just as old as Charles is. Was.

Charles. The Professor. Chuck, whatever name he went by when it suited him. He has to fucking salute himself on the last one, though, the Professor really did suit a 'Chuck', smiley-toothed and all. He'd laugh now if it didn't hurt his chest so much.

He remembers, oh, how he remembers, how fucking scared _shit_ he felt when he heard the first gunshot that sent Will barrelling through the doors. It all went downhill from there. His heart pounded as he followed suit and tore through the front porch, desperate for the safety of one man. Only a single person registered in his mind and his name was Charles Xavier

Because Charles was the first, and sometimes he thinks, the only one, to have ever been unafraid enough to stand by Logan. The first one who unlocked his not only his mind but his soul and taught him to understand himself, maybe even to the point of near-liking himself.

But by then, it was too late. It was too goddamn late when Will's wife decided to let three strangers into their house, not knowing what it was getting them into. Should have just thanked them and ran far away in the other direction, never once looking back.

Selfishly, he thinks, because then Charles would still be alive.

_"This is what home feels like, Logan. A safe place, people who love each other. You deserve a chance to feel this."_

At what cost?

Their kid was only fifteen, they were peaceful, they were happy. Charles had to have known what kind of risk, what kind of danger he was exposing them all to. And over what, exactly? A herd of fucking horses? Dinner?

_"You still have time."_

Not anymore.

_"When I first met you you were looking up the prospects of being a cagefighter. What an animal you were." _

Charles had chuckled back then when he first said that, when Logan finally stopped growling and scathing at him and instead grunted. The first step towards this new life, a life of trying to do something right but always fucking up in the end. Always turning back into the monster he's stuffed deep inside. Maybe that was why Charles was able to reach him, at the point in time where he was at his lowest, most primal. Promoting himself one step above soon-to-be cage fighter and assassin to become Charles' most helpless student. Oh, but Charles Xavier did not do giving up. He would never give up on a single human being for all the peace in the world. Even until his last dying breath, no matter how disappointing the end result would be. Just look at all the time he wasted on the self-proclaimed X-Men, on Lehnsherr. Only to have everything fall apart in the end, by his mind no less. But Logan made sure that he was still safe in the knowledge that he had tried to do his best. It would've killed him, knowing that he couldn't fix something. Though maybe in the end Charles really was just an arrogant ass, and he, no more than an animal.

In the end, Logan was that something. Even after years he had never been able to reach that level of self-control and acceptance that Charles did so admire in people like himself, in people like Lehnsherr who were ever so determined to their pretentious cause, in humanity itself. Because no matter what Charles says, he has always wanted to fit in, to conform, to coexist. And anything not part of that norm, he would do his best to fix, to love, to 'teach'.

But in the end, there are always things that can never be taught, and some people could never be put back together even with the wealth of all the world's love. Charles was right. Logan never changed. He was still an animal now, hunted and soon to be drained of its very last breaths. It would be real fucking funny if someone decided to rip his head from his dead corpse just to hang on the wall later on. Really, he's only holding on to that very last breath because, as he told Lehnsherr once, he's a survivor. Always has, always will be.

Breathing. What a weird thing to take for granted. To Logan, breathing has come about just as easily as suffering has. That is - it's rough, it's tiring, and sometimes it's not at all worth it to keep plowing through. Charles, ever the optimist, would probably urge otherwise, that this wasn't the way to view life, that there was always the good in people that was worth fighting for. He only ever believed in the best side of humanity, sometimes to the point of stupid naïveté.

He bet that was the way he was thinking until he last breathed. Hopefully, that's what he thought before he was stabbed thrice straight through the lungs.

_It wasn't me._

He winces and squeezes his eyes shut as another wave of pain threatens to burst through his rapidly thumping chest. Logan knows it's selfish to wish that Charles still saw the best of him until the very end. Charles deserved better, he had always deserved better. Deserved more than being Magneto's friendly rival or something more at the side, deserved more than being stuck with Logan till the bitter fucking end, deserved far more recognition than the little hole he found in the ground.

He deserved more than to die at _his_ hands.

_It wasn't me._

But it _was _Logan. It was the part of himself he hated, the primal self that he had stuffed so far down in order to snuff it out, to protect those around him. The thing was, when Logan was pushed down, he always came roaring back up again. He took lives, bared his teeth to whatever, he as an untameable beast that never knew how to pick his battles. God, he was such a _fucking disappointment._

_It wasn't _me.

Even a child knew better than him. Laura was, maybe, one of the few things he would come to properly love in his life. His own flesh and blood without the complicated relationships that never worked out. She cried, for him, cried clinging pitifully to his hand, so small compared to his own but just as strong. It was that moment that Logan finally realised what Charles wanted to say.

The small need to be protected until they were big. There were still things worth fighting for till the bitter end. There were some things in their world that weren't completely shit all the way to the end.

_I always know who you are. It's just sometimes I don't recognize you._

_I can't help you Logan, not really, if you're not going to talk to me._

_I gave you a family._

_Daddy._

So, this is what it feels like.

If being a disappointment meant saving Laura, meant having those few hours of faux peace, meant taking care of old man Charles and spitting banter back and forth with Caliban daily, meant being able to shoot that fucking pommy doctor before he went on torturing more innocent children like Laura, meant those kids finally getting their well deserved revenge, meant putting a bullet into the part of him that he hates the most, meant everything that had led up to this point, the good, the bad, and the inbetween, then so be it.

Eventually, Logan falls asleep calmly to the notion of being the best disappointment he could be.


End file.
